Samson
by forbiddenxfairytales
Summary: Althea realizes that she isn't an Aeducan anymore. She isn't really anything. And it's all her fault that Gorim is gone and her family is dead and she hasn't ever been able to hold on to anything that's actually mattered to her before.


A spur-of-the-moment thing. Not very good, but...I tried?...  
I wanted to explore the mentality of a surface dwarf scarred by dwarven politics.  
Enjoy!

If you like feeling all the feels, listen to _Samson_ by Regina Spektor while you read.  
Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me._  
_

* * *

_"I want to save us. Save what we have. Is that so wrong?" he demands. His brown eyes are dark and determined and sure, especially for him._

So Althea had said yes. How could she not have?  
But now she paces her room.  
Back and forth relentlessly with quick, short steps…  
And with every passing second, her mind gets louder, louder, so much louder until she can't control it.

And with each passing moment, Althea knows (she **_knows_**) that she is losing him bit by little bit.

Because how can she, a dwarf, even begin to compare with Morrigan, a witch of the Kocari wilds? Morrigan is free and wild and experienced; she is everything that Alistair had once told Althea that he wanted.

She was everything that Althea wasn't.

And sure, Alistair had never quite warmed up to Morrigan. But if Althea knew anything, it was that the hearts of men were not always steadfast.  
Someone would swear by the Maker, by the Paragons, by whatever they believed in, that they loved you. But Althea had learned not to believe in things like love.

If you were a leader, you couldn't.

She had learned that from Bhelen. And Trian. And _**him…**_

And in the end, men were faithless and false and she couldn't trust them at all.  
It had happened before.

_"Don't you trust me?" he asks her. Althea thinks back to Gorim and how he hadn't even bothered to check for certain if she was dead or alive before he ran off and got married. And she knows that no matter how much she wants to, she doesn't. Because she never learned what, exactly, trust was. But she nods anyway, kisses him one last time, and lets him go. Probably for good._

But she realizes now that it was foolish, foolish, foolish to let him go through with this ritual.  
And not just because it was suspicious and probably dangerous.

It was foolish because Althea had already lost someone once and she, no matter how much she lied to herself, was not ready to lose someone again.  
Not like this.

She knows that now.  
And so, Althea runs out of the room and down the hall. She cannot let him do this and if death was the price of her decision, better her death than his.

But the door is already locked tight.  
What little chance she had to keep him is gone.  
No going back.  
It's over. Done. Finished.

Too late.

Her heart breaks in an unthinkable way.  
But she won't cry. She may be a sodding girl, but she's an Aeducan, too and she won't cry.  
She can't.

But then, Althea realizes that she isn't an Aeducan anymore.  
She isn't **_really_** anything.  
And it's all her fault that Gorim is gone and her family is dead, and she hasn't ever been able to hold on to anything that's actually mattered to her before.  
And she can't help it: the tears begin to fall.

* * *

_"Watch for me at dawn. I'll be back." he promises. But it doesn't sound much like a promise to Althea. It sounds like a condition.  
__If. I'll be back __**if**__.  
__If I remember.  
__If I still care.  
__If I even remotely still want you at all.  
__Althea barely notices when he presses his lips to her forehead and is gone._

She lies awake all night, waiting. Not even daring to hope. Willing herself not to listen for his footsteps, but doing so all the same. She doesn't know how long she lies there in the dark.  
She only knows that somewhere in the castle, the man she never thought she'd lose is bedding another, a better, woman, and she had let it happen.

* * *

And then, at the crack of dawn, someone opens the door.  
Althea is up like a shot.  
"Alistair?" she says.

A startled servant stops in his tracks and Althea's heart ices over.  
"Er…No, my lady. The queen has asked me to wake you and escort you to the armory. To prepare for the battle?"  
And that is when the last honest part of her dies.

Alistair never came back.  
It is time for battle, and he never came back.

* * *

Hair flying, face smudged with dirt and sweat and blood.

Alistair is just across the courtyard.  
Morrigan is long gone.  
But ever since last night, something about Alistair has been different.

But Althea has more important things to worry about so she pushes aside everything that she feels and leads instead. With a level-head and a cool composure.

* * *

The archdemon? Dead.

Everywhere around her, there are triumphant cheers and shouts as the men fight off the last of the stragglers.  
Gritting her teeth in pain, Althea gets up off the ground and pulls her sword from the dragon's flesh.  
It's over.  
It's over and despite it all, she is happy.

In the midst of the happy chaos, she feels someone watching her; Alistair.  
For a moment, she thinks to take a few steps toward where he is standing. But she stops when she sees him shake his head and walk away.  
She lets him go.  
By the time she notices the genlock behind her, it is too late.

* * *

In the end, she is lying on the ground, thinking that maybe she's lost him for nothing. Or maybe, just like with Gorim, it was meant to end badly from the start.  
She'll always love Alistair though, damn it.  
She will.

"Althea!" Alistair cries. "Althea!"  
But Althea can't even find the strength to open her eyes, turn her head, and take one last look at the person she loves so much.  
She feels pain…So much pain…  
Then raindrops…  
Then nothing.

* * *

Alistair stands over the tomb of the woman he once loved.

He doesn't shed tears.  
He just stands silently over the stone casket and tries to pretend that the inlaid etching of Althea's resting figure is just as beautiful as the actual living, breathing being used to be.

He isn't sure why he did it.  
He knew she was fragile.

Maybe it was because he thought that not showing up would be easier than telling her that he couldn't be in love with her anymore.  
And not because he had suddenly fallen in love with Morrigan, like he had wanted Althea to think. But because she wasn't like him.

She would always be a stone-lover to the people of Ferelden; unfit to be with him, no matter what she accomplished as a Grey Warden.

His throat burns with an anger and misery and sadness he can't express. And he feels so…tired.  
Because he knows that nothing can bring her back, but that doesn't stop him from wishing.

"You idiot…" Alistair whispers to himself. "You stupid fool."

Silence.

And this time, _**he** _can't help it: the tears fall.

To the tomb stone, he whispers, "I'm sorry."

Suddenly, a light wind picks up and rustles the leaves of a nearby tree.  
She forgives him.  
Because she still loves him, as she promised she always would.

But that is why, as Alistair trudges back down the hill, and as he travels across Ferelden, and as he takes his place as queenless king, he cannot help but hate himself all the more.


End file.
